“And then?” Chiang demanded again.
“To return to my place in the army,” I-wan replied.
“Granted!” Chiang exclaimed. He turned away and struck the bell on his desk and the door opened and his wife came in and I-wan knew himself dismissed. He rose and bowed, but Chiang was not looking at him.
“Where is that map of the new road to Burma?” he was asking her as though she had not been away from him. “I had my hand on it a moment ago.”
“Here it is,” she said, laughing at him a little, “here under your hand!”
And I-wan went out with these words in his ears. The new road to Burma! Was that finished already? He had heard it was being made — thousands of men and women were making it. Well, it was a strange way to fight a war, perhaps, to make a great road westward while the enemy bombed the east! But it was their way. What if the real country his sons would know was this new inner China, looking not seaward but across the mountains to India? Who knew? But who knew anything?
And he went to find his father.